CHAPTER XIV
THE CAUSES OF THE FALL IN GOLD PRICES AFTER
1873 '
IT is admitted that after 1873 there was a great reduction in the cost of production of many commodities, and also a great reduction in the cost of transport, but it cannot be too strongly repeated that these causes would of themselves have absolutely no effect on the general level of prices.
It is possible by examining the conditions affecting each commodity to decide whether there existed causes tending to cause a rise or fall in price, but even if you take into consideration the case of every commodity, you deal only with the causes which produce changes in relative prices, and you find no data which are of the slightest value in determining the absolute or general level of prices. By examining the conditions affecting wheat and copper you may find causes which appear to explain why wheat has fallen from sixty shillings a quarter to thirty shillings a quarter and copper risen from £50